The invention concerns a one-piece molded strainer attachment for water outlet fittings and the like. It is formed with a number of flow or strainer apertures.
A strainer attachment of the above mentioned general type is already disclosed in the Dieter Wildfang European patent application 0,284,763 published Oct. 5, 1988. This strainer attachment serves as a protective strainer that prevents dirt particles from clogging the passage openings of downstream components. To this end, the known strainer attachment has a number of strainer apertures, all of which have open rectangular cross sections.
Such strainer attachments are subjected to the water pressure of the inflowing water, high water temperatures and at the same time increased amounts of dirt particles that magnify the resistance to the flow as well. These loads could basically be counteracted by a strengthening of the strainer material. Instead, however, the objective continues to be to construct such strainer attachments with the thinnest walls possible. Thin-walled strainer attachments are preferred over thicker walls which would result in lengthy and sharply defined individual jets, and concomitant increased in noise.
There has been a need to create a strainer attachment of the above described type, which produces the lowest possible noise, large flow throughput, and has good straining or cleaning action.